posted
I am new to the lyme game and have been infected for 8 years. I'm 28 and have two beautiful boys (both of who tested negative thank goodness.) I have been ramping up my treatment slowly (think extremely slowly) and have been on 50mgs of doxycycline 2x per day. Ever since I started the doxy I have felt horrible. Fatigued, dizzy and heart palls...all symptoms that I have had in the past but not recently. Is it possible to herx on such a small amount of antibiotic? I need to be functional as I work in sales and can't afford to loose my job. I have been drinking lots of lemon water and using activated charcoal. Am I herxing or just stirring the darn buggers up with such a lose dose?
Posts: 7 | From Nebraska | Registered: Apr 2012
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desertwind
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 25256
posted
IMO/E I would say yes - it can make you herx.
I have been sick for about 8 years and in the very beginning of treatment I could not tolerate Doxy AT ALL. Even 100 mg. was too much and I would be incapacitated.
Now finally afer many years of off again/on again treatmenet I am able to tolerate a steady dose of 350-400 mgs.
It took me a long time to get to that point and I treated with different meds which helped to get the load down before being able to get that dose of Doxy.
I never thought I could do Doxy, but years later I can.
My advise would be to respect your body and its reaction to the med. If you herx at a very low dose then just go with it. Pace yourself and keep up with detox. You and your LLMD will know when to ramp it up but remember this is a marathon not a sprint.
Posts: 1671 | From Tick Infested New Jersey | Registered: Apr 2010
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posted
Yes. I haven't even been sick long (less than 1 year) and I herxed a lot on 100 mg. If 100 mg is too much, maybe ask your doc if you can try 50 mg for a week or two first!
Going slow is definitely good at this point.
Also, keep detoxing (baths/dry brushing/Alka Seltzer Gold/lots of water). Many of us have gene mutations on the MTHFR liver enzyme, which makes our livers more sluggish to eliminate toxins.
Posts: 330 | From TN | Registered: Sep 2011
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'Kete-tracker
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 17189
posted
Oh, yes! You can have a Jarsch-Herxheimer reaction with even a low dose of doxycycline if it's throughout your system & hasn't been treated before. It's part of getting better.
UnFORtunately, you will NOT get well by staying at a low dose. In fact, you can actually *hurt* your chances of recovering on ANY dose of the "cyclines" (including "tetra", a fav of Dr D out of MA) You see, it allows the bugs to develop resistance to the intracellular. Then you have to knock 1 mnore abx off the [quite] short list of oral abx you can use. (That's why building up to an "ILADS level" of any Lyme-fighting abx is so important.)
I was on 400 mg per day [200mg b.i.d.] for 3 months & made good progress, but still only really got my energy back (& my life back!) after 3 mo.s of another protocol (based on amoxicillun).
You need to talk w/ your employer(s) about the possibility of taking a a health-related sabbatical ("vacation") so you can get thru the worst of it.. which might be 2 or 3 months.
Then you can get back to selling "better than ever", as you'll have the energy again.
posted
I had to start with just 50 mg per day and it took me four months to eventually work up to 100 mg twice a day. Slow and steady has worked for me... and my doctor supports this approach. I had/have a lot of lyme related heart issues, and my herxes always involve heart pounding, palps, and POTS. I drank a lot of water and just had to work through it.
The herxing would then let up and I would increase by 50mg... when I added Ceftin the heart issues have gotten better but I still have pounding heart issues and fatigue with herxing. I have two little kiddos so some days are really tough. Hang in there
Bartonella henselae 1:100 Posts: 2027 | From British Columbia | Registered: Jun 2010
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Summer3
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 35286
posted
When do the herxes generally start on doxy and the heart issues?
A week in to 100mg 2x per day I started feeling terrible. I started having racing heartbeats, dizziness and total exhaustion and fatigue.
I had to function, so I decided to drink some coffee. I NEVER drink this, but I felt like if I didn't have some caffeine I would literally collapse trying to function all day like a normal person. So maybe this caused the heart issue.
I had a severe anxiety/OCD exercise episode earlier in the week too which is unusual for me.
I'm worried about the resistance factor too. How soon should one build up to the 300-400 mg dose?
lululymemom
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 26405
posted
My daughter's heart issues started within 3 days.. so we were told it was a herx and to stay with it. Big Mistake! Her cardiologist (a previous Lyme survivor) told her it was induced by the doxy. The issues subsided with ceftin but never totally went away.
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